


wonderful human qualities

by InkWitch (serkestic)



Category: Night World - L. J. Smith
Genre: Character Study?, Epistolary, F/M, Getting to Know Each Other, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, this is on the verge of purple prose and i don't know how to feel about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serkestic/pseuds/InkWitch
Summary: “You know everything about me,” said Quinn.“Not all, not yet,” said Rashel. “But I’m learning.”Post-canon exploration of CatQuinn through a series of short scenes!
Relationships: Rashel Jordan/John Quinn
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	wonderful human qualities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shihadchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/gifts).



> The number of times I switched between the three drafts I had for this assignment... it is a miracle I didn't default. I hope this meets your expectations > < [inspo](https://twitter.com/affectingbot/status/1338881139365261314)
> 
> ~~dear giftee, if you have negative feedback, please sandwich it between positives bc i have a fragile insecure heart rip~~

Quinn in a fight was a magician’s act. His movements were always sharp and forceful, never wasteful, with the tactics of a strategist. His eyes took in the whole of his opponent in a single moment and from there, he simply broke it down like a math problem. Quinn had beaten Rashel six times out of ten.

Their eleventh bout was taking place in Circle Daybreak’s sparring hall. They had an audience; they always did. It was an Event to see Rashel the Cat and Quinn “Redfern” in action. Their combined reputation drew in fans and bets, the training hall turned into a mini-colosseum. Of course, it was also something else to see soulmates sparring.

Rashel shoved her sword up to catch the downswing of Quinn’s kick and twisted it to throw him off-balance. She caught the flash of his grin before he spun right under her guard and drove an elbow into her diaphragm. She stumbled back, letting the momentum take her out of his reach on purpose. _You… Hey, that was a low blow._

 _I didn’t read you_. He shifted to dodge a swing from her sword. _I’m getting used to your tricks, kitten._

Oh, really? Rashel centered herself, letting the tension fall from her shoulders as she took her stance. It had been fifteen minutes already and her stamina was feeling its effect. Quinn, on the other hand, simply gleamed with vitality. Vampire genes, thought Rashel with a scoff, he really should fight with a crutch. Not that she would need it.

She smiled coquettishly at Quinn, a private smile she kept for their private moments, and he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. But she spotted the tinge of pink touching his ears. _What are you doing…?_ His words touched her mind the moment he lunged forward, bent on not letting her have the first move. Rashel braced herself and blocked the blow, its force pushing her back an inch but most of it channeled into the ground. Then she brought her knee up.

She checked over her training sword with a critical eye, noting that it would need some reinforcing after their fight. Quinn really didn’t hold back, she thought wryly, and glanced down at her boyfriend curled up on the ground.

“…fuck.”

Rashel smiled sweetly. “Now, _that_ was a low blow.”

He threw her a glare. “What happened to your honor code?”

“You’re not a target, honey,” said Rashel, unable to stop grinning. “And you’re clearly not used to _all_ of my tricks.”

He gave up with a sigh. Rashel extended a hand and he took it, pulling himself up with a wince. Quinn looked her over before muttering, “I’m still winning.”

“Yeah,” she said, winding her fingers around his. “But I’m catching up.”

◢◤◢◤◢◤

With John, love was a kind of unravelling. She, that touch-starved child from the urban wilds, learned to play at it like a prayer, firstly and then, a game. The temptation to fall headlong and reckless was tempered by a condition suspicion—both of him, the other, and her own desires. Rashel had no experience in indulging herself. It went against the grain. But compassion came intuitively to her, and trust came intuitively to Quinn, so they met halfway.

It helped that they understood each other. The soulmate principle also helped—that ancient magic that had tied their fates like a Chinese finger trap, it allowed them to immediately recognize the mirror in each other. But the real trick to love, Rashel found, was consideration and the willingness to extend it. She was rusty at it. But with John, it poured out of her like blood.

◢◤◢◤◢◤

When she was the same age as John Quinn, he took her to the house that he had died in. Well, they went within a mile of it, the location now a Redfern estate owned by some lamia descendant. His smile was vague and twisted as he described the landscapes of his past, pointing out the secret spots his human self had hidden in while stalking his vampire crush. Rashel had seen the place in which Dove lived in Quinn’s mind, stuck perpetually in that horrific flash of betrayal and death. Maybe it was that lingering image, or maybe it was that Quinn had stood a foot away from her to tell his story, or maybe it was simple jealous curiosity.

“What did Dove look like?” she asked.

Quinn looked at her with faint bewilderment. “Dove? Well… She was—”

“All vampires are beautiful,” said Rashel, snorting. “It’s practically a phenetic feature. What did she _look_ like?”

“Dove?” said Quinn again and paused. “Brown eyes. Brown hair. She had more of her mother than her father, I suppose. And she…” That bleak remoteness settled around him. “The old memories are harder to remember,” he said, and Rashel somehow knew that he was talking about his human life.

It had only been a year since they’d met. Or barely a year. In reality, Rashel knew, they didn’t really know each other. John had centuries of a life before he met her and Rashel had a deep landmine of a past. They both had histories littered with bloody figures and neither were eager to shine light on them. But Rashel had a hunger. John Quinn had locked in a cage all his memories and knowledge of warmth, and even the meeting of his soulmate had not melted the ice. He held himself apart and none of Rashel’s sunshine chaos in their mind-link could convince him of his own worth.

Quinn was a vampire. And in his heart of hearts, he believed that it meant that he was forever a demon.

It struck Rashel, that the irony of that meant that the human had never really left him. All Hunter Redfern had done, in stoking the flames of speciesist hatred, was sink a deep poisonous stake of self-hatred into John’s heart, and using it to make him his puppet.

It enraged Rashel that he had succeeded at it for so long. It made her thirsty for the quiet revenge of removing that stake. And despite everything, it made her feel lost and juvenile.

Quinn gave her a small smile; his own nonverbal apology. “Why are you curious about Dove?”

“Not Dove,” she said. She stepped forward, closing the distance, and wrapped an arm around him. A tiny thrill of triumph shivered across her spine when he wrapped his own arms around her to hold her closer. “You.”

“You know everything about me,” said Quinn.

“Not all, not yet,” said Rashel. “But I’m learning.”

◢◤◢◤◢◤

He learned about her in little failures. The lip-bite of annoyance when he arrived ten minutes late to pick her up. The cupping of the elbows when his insult during a tirade struck too close to home. The smile, then quick change to scowl, when he teased her and she found it funny. The narrowing of her eyes: a warning.

The quiet storm when she encountered injustice. It was barely noticeable because she was so good at channeling her anger into control, but it hit him in the ulcer anyway. It reminded him of the first time he saw her green eyes glowing in the dark and the awesome realization that he might actually die after centuries of desolate living. And then the second time, when he touched her, and she touched him, and the survival instinct faded into the greed for life.

This, Quinn would discover in the following years, was what he was missing, perhaps. He had been a greedy man for his entire existence. Greed had led to his downfall—the ignorant human clutching at an immortal love—and it had informed his lifestyle. He had been greedy for Hunter Redfern’s approval and greedy for money; and he had been greedy for money and status that had no strings attached. What a damned fool. It had all meant so little, in the end.

When Rashel touched him, greed flared up like a recurrent cancer. She poured sunshine and brilliance into him with a happy carelessness and it only made him lose more of his sense around her. Guilt, he thought to himself, and atonement. That should be his cross to bear.

 _Poor idiot_ , she sighed, her words light as a moth’s wing in his mind. She kissed under his chin and smiled against his skin. _Do you think I will let you feel evil and burdened anymore?_

She was a heavy weight on top of him, in his arms. Quinn’s lap was Rashel’s favorite place; just like a cat, he thought, and the smile broke out of him. Rashel saw it and grinned herself. The straps of her tank-top slid gently off her shoulders. Quinn stared at them.

“Quinn,” she said, and thought, _John_. “We only have half an hour before work, you know.”

“I’m not in a hurry,” said Quinn with a smirk. She was warm; he pressed his mouth against her throat and slowly closed it in a hot kiss. She shivered and went pliant.

“You and your,” he’d slid his hands up her shirt with a light scraping of his nails against her back and Rashel’s eyes went dark, “ _vampire nonsense_. Not everyone has super speed. Make it quick.”

He had learned about her in a collection of mistakes and it was a wealth of knowledge by now. And she was his mirror in ways that only the Powers foretold, ways he would never comprehend or challenge. Quinn had found what his centuries had lacked; and bit by bit, whether he willed it or not, he forgave himself for it. It would take more centuries to be worthy of Rashel Jordan. But.

“We have time,” said Quinn gently. “We have plenty of it.” He kissed her and lost himself in it.


End file.
